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Updated: July 15, 2025
It was a long time before two aces came together. It seemed as if the very importance of the stakes called for more than the usual time to decide the bet. It was decided at length. The ring followed the watch. I caught D'Hauteville by the arm, and drew him away from the table. This time he followed me unresistingly as he had nothing more to lay.
Another ten dollars won another lost another and another, and so on, now winning, now losing, now betting with cheques, now with gold-pieces until at length I felt to the bottom of my purse without encountering a coin! I rose from my seat, and turned towards D'Hauteville with a glance of despair. I needed not to tell him the result.
There was nothing remarkable in his being so young and still au-fait to all the mysteries of life. Precocity is the privilege of the American, especially the native of New Orleans. A Creole at fifteen is a man. I felt satisfied that D'Hauteville about my own age knew far more of the world than I, who had been half my life cloistered within the walls of an antique university.
Our hurrying stops soon brought us in front of one of these establishments, whose lamp told us in plain letters that "faro" was played inside. It was the first that offered; and, without hesitating a moment, I entered, followed by D'Hauteville. We had to climb a wide stairway, at the top of which we were received by a whiskered and moustached fellow in waiting.
"This is a serious charge," said Justice Claiborne, evidently impressed with its truth, and prepared to entertain it. "Your name, sir, if you please?" continued he, interrogating D'Hauteville, in a mild tone of voice. It was the first time I had seen D'Hauteville in the full light of day. All that had yet passed between us had taken place either in the darkness of night or by the light of lamps.
"Now, Monsieur Dominique Gayarre!" continued D'Hauteville, as soon as the reading was finished, "I charge you with the embezzlement of this fifty thousand dollars, with various other sums of which more hereafter. I charge you with having concealed the existence of this money of having withheld it from the assets of the estate Besancon of having appropriated it to your own use!"
Uncle Ferdinand was ill when he arrived in Paris. He stayed with us that is, my uncle Maurice and I in the Rue d'Hauteville. He seemed to get worse all the time, and he was worried because of some business in London which he could not attend to. Then it was arranged that my Uncle Maurice should take his place and come over here, only no one was to know that it was not Ferdinand himself.
All this would surely baffle the dogs for a while; besides, D'Hauteville, at starting, had left the pawpaw thicket by a different route from that we had taken. They might go off on his trail. Would that they might follow D'Hauteville. All these conjectures passed rapidly through my mind as we hurried along. I even thought of making an attempt to throw the hounds off the scent.
I was further assured upon this point by seeing the vehicle draw up in front of the avocat's house. I at once gave up my design of going back for D'Hauteville. Climbing back into the hack, I ensconced myself in such a position, that I could command a view of what passed in the Rue Bienville. Some one was evidently about to become the occupant of the carriage.
"Aurore Besancon is no slave, but a free Quadroon! Here, Justice Claiborne," continued D'Hauteville, "do me the favour to read this document!" At the same time the speaker handed a folded parchment across the room. The sheriff passed it to the magistrate, who opened it and read aloud.
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